A fissure, a crack in the sea bed and the ocean itself is swallowed deep, cooling the center of the earth, steam hissing out of volcanic outlets the world over, causing the rotation to slow, the air to stagnate and drop in temperature then paired against the volcanic effluence, all time stands still and humans have no way of creating anything but death instead of solutions. Rows of small, jangly pastel houses and the porch waste that surrounds them, fishing villages, boating entrepeneurs, scuba diving business in the depth mysterious around the Calmwater Cove kelp forests and its legendary buried treasure. Now that the ocean drained itself, mainlanders, from landlocked cities and boarded up neighborhoods, flocked to see the damp and formed mountain range in its embyronic state. How nice to park on the beach and be looking down into fathoms and distant views normally reserved for the jet airliners or the oxygen tank junkies climbed up the himalayans! The natives bathe their children in the rich nutrient muck. (too highest tide. direct scene).
I climbed down there with my rope looking for my father's old boat hoping to find his recognizable skeleton aboard. As he took his terminal voyage out into the horizon (boat disappeared, never moored elsewhere) I heard my parents arguing about some kind of inheritance. A treasure that traces our Heraldt lineage back, back, back to it's ancestral roots.. some black, keyless chest... my mother was arguing he is being stubborn with his superstition to take it and anchor it out around Spinebreak Point.. we can use those gems and golden artifacts to raise the boy! she scream/whispered. Not knowing I'd gotten back from the Gregoire brother's rock fights before sundown. Pelted and bruised.
I remember a yarn my grandfather spun out of himself before the ocean and his soul ran away. As it unraveled, I felt entranced. "These artifacts... golden jewel encrusted amulets and thunderbolt shaped necklaces all spooled with silver twine and jade trim all shining beautiful like contained fires. fires contained in stones and inside the hearts of mans souls. these objects, my dear grandson, are said to be all that remains from a race of Outsiders. those hooded cretins told about in children's stories that hum or chant as they walk through lantern lit woods with people writhing in body bags strung up beneath stakes... (my mother would have swept me away to hear this kind of talk... I looked around nervously, feeling her protective presence looming.)
"They would, like the Aztecs, use their still pumping organs to appease Forces in their black forest pagan rituals, feared and feared by all surrounding tribesmen."
One naive boy... stole this revered chest from these howling hooded figures with his two friends. they hoisted it onto a sled and dragged it through the woods with their mastiff Mogley. No one gave physical chase. Invisible forces born out of the dark rituals around fire-pentagrams were sent shrilling after them like a time release poison. Moons later... legend has it... on their happiest day, these spirits would melt the livers of all the nice folk that surround the thieves and they would be held in place, paralyzed, eyes wide open, to watch the invisible murderous hands of Force destroy his family.
Afterward, confined to a wheelchair and constant shooting nerve pain from the extremities... tiny spirits invade the bloodstream and prevent any solution...
